


Sin of Grace

by BettlerWerdenFuerstenbrueder



Series: ZMcZ Prompt Ultramarathon [1]
Category: El Goonish Shive
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Navel-Gazing, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-07-12 03:13:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7082875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BettlerWerdenFuerstenbrueder/pseuds/BettlerWerdenFuerstenbrueder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A nightmare prompts Grace to question her moral compass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Tedd snapped open her eyes at the sound of Grace screaming a single, horrible word.  She propped herself up on her elbows to see Grace floating above the bed, glowing in battle form, her pajamas in tatters around her body.  There was a deathly intensity in her eyes, wide open as she stared silently into the darkness.

Tedd wrapped her arms around Grace's legs and looked up at her, eyes wide in tender concern.  Feeling her partner wrapped around her legs, Grace looked down, still asleep, and saw Tedd's soft eyes lit by her own aura.  This shared gaze crept into what little of her mind was active, sparking the rest back into reality.  She awoke with a start, a spasm to her leg kicking Tedd square in the ribs, winding her and knocking her back to the bed.

At that Grace woke up fully.  She floated down to the bed, as she did so shifting back to the squirrel form she'd gone to sleep in.  Her ruined pajamas fell over her like a net draped over her bare body.  She grabbed Tedd and kissed her. "I'm sorry I'm sorry..."

Tedd grabbed her and drew her tight to her bosom.  "Shh, I'm fine, I just want to know you're okay."

Grace started to answer, but was interrupted by rapid footsteps, followed by a firm, fast knock on the door.  The lovers let go of one another as Tedd got up to answer.

"Dad?"

After a moment of hesitation caused by Tedd's female voice, Mr. Verres asked, "Son?  Is Grace in there with you?"

"Yeah."

"Is she all right?"

"She's fine."

Mr. Verres sighed.  "Son," he said, "I'd rather hear that from her."

Tedd and Grace exchanged a glance.  "Yeah, I'm here," Grace said quietly.  "I had a nightmare."

Another deep sigh came from the other side of the door.  "All right.  Just checking."

As Mr. Verres's footsteps faded, Tedd began to help Grace out of her tattered pajamas.  The squirrel girl barely moved, only shifting for her partner to get the rags off more easily.  She soon sat naked on the side of the bed, staring at the floor, and Tedd put an arm around her.

Tedd examined the look in Grace's eyes, that steady, unmoving gaze at nothing.  Her eyes seemed to Tedd to be turned inward, even as their pupils faced the floor.  Still, what it was she might be looking at was a mystery to her, Grace's eyes and posture betraying nothing but a deep sadness.  She waited for her to speak, to move, to do anything – but eventually, she felt she herself had to speak.

"Grace, you were screaming, 'rape.'"

"I was?"

"Yeah."

Grace paused before responding, still not moving. "I guess that makes sense," she said.

"Wh-" Tedd began to ask, but stopped herself. Grace turned and stared, silently daring her to ask.  "Why?" she whispered.

"Tengu."

"The monster thing from the New Year's party?"  A look of horror came over Tedd's face.  "What did it do to you?"

At that question, Grace seemed nearly as horrified.  "Nothing, nothing! He was down by the time I got there."  She sighed.  "In fact, he didn't really do anything too bad to anyone.  He just transformed a bunch of people, and brainwashed them."

"That sounds pretty bad," said Tedd.

"But he said he'd made them all look like..." Grace suddenly seemed to realize something and stopped.  "Um, I mean, I think, well, Ellen said he'd said something that makes me think he'd transformed them so he could... that he planned to... r-r-..."

Tedd again drew Grace to her bosom, and held her in a moment's silence, which Grace quietly broke.

"Tedd?" she asked, "do you think I could have killed him?"

Tedd hesitated.  "Well, I don't know. He was pretty strong, wasn't he?"

"That's not what I meant."

Tedd sighed.  "I know. And I don't know."

"I threatened to.  I knew if he'd gotten a second wind – if Ellen and Nanase had been wrong about him running out the clog – I'd have had to.  But even saying the words, it felt like I was reciting a script.  It didn't feel like something I could actually do."

"Is that why you couldn't finish your pacifist _New Vegas_ run?"

"Yeah," said Grace.  "The Legion made me just see red, and I wasn't totally sure why at the time, but now I think that's what really brought this to the fore.  But it's easy to 'kill' pixels on a screen."

"I know," said Tedd, "I didn't mean to suggest..."

"I know.  But this has been haunting me on some level ever since I learned about the Holocaust in school, and then Tengu, and even before that the boar..."

"Grace, I know if it comes down to it, you'll do what's right."

"I don't," said Grace as she lay down above the covers, cured up in a ball.  Tedd lay down in front of her, clinging tight to her bare fur; Grace looked up at Tedd and kissed her, raising her own hands to Tedd's shoulders.  At that she pressed her head to Tedd's upper chest, and Tedd put her cheek against Grace's head.  The two held each other like that, frozen like statues, until the sun was well above the horizon.


	2. Chapter 2

"Grace?" said Ellen, "you look awful."

"I didn't really sleep last night," she said.

"Too much fun with your girlyboy?" she asked with a cheeky smile.

"No, I just didn't sleep," Grace replied in a matter-of-fact tone.  "I was thinking about Tengu."

Ellen's face fell.  "Oh.  Maybe you should come in."

Grace came in, to find that Nanase was with Ellen.  She waved, and Nanase winced.  "Geez, Grace, you do look awful."

"Mm."

Ellen went to sit down next to Nanase, as Grace stood in front of them.  "You, um, you really, really ought to sit down," said Ellen, scooting away from her girlfriend a bit.

"Thanks," said Grace before sitting down between them.  She rested her head on Ellen's shoulder, and Ellen put an arm around her.

"What's this about Tengu?" asked Ellen.  Nanase mouthed the word, "Tengu," a worried look in her eyes.

"Well," said Grace, "you remember how I threatened to kill him?"

"Oh, don't tell me you feel guilty over that!" snapped Nanase.

"No!" exclaimed Grace as she jumped to her feet. "Well, not like you mean. Actually, kind of the opposite, really..."

"The opposite?" Nanase asked.

Grace looked away from the two of them. "I think... I wouldn't have," she said.  "And he'd have gotten away with Diane's sister and her friends."

"Aw, jeez," said Ellen.  "Don't beat yourself up over that.  We had it."

Nanase took a deep breath.  "No, Ellen, she's right."

"What?" asked Ellen.

"We happened to win – but what if we hadn't?"

"We did."

"That's right, this one time, we did."  Nanase sighed, then addressed Grace herself.  "Grace, it doesn't matter what Tengu would have done if he'd won.  This was part of a larger MO, and whatever he planned to do with the party guests, he must have done in Europe, for years at a time."

"I... I didn't even think of that.  That's... that's horrible!  I... I don't... what can I even say to that?"

"Well, Someone knew what to say," said Nanase.  "Do you know who Euthyphro is, Grace?"

"No."

"Do you know who Socrates is?"

Grace responded a mile a minute.  "Athenian philosopher, fifth century BCE, no surviving works, possibly fictitious, known primarily through fictionalized dialogues by his student Plato and, to a lesser extent, Xenophon.  Early dialogues, thought to be most true to the actual person if there was one, center on the common theme of extreme skepticism, giving name to the rhetorical technique 'Socratic irony,' feigning ignorance to elicit contradictory responses.  Executed by hemlock at sixty-nine or seventy for impiety, the people blaming him for Alcibiades.  Was Euthyphro one of the dialogues?"

"Yes.  An early one.  Plato.  Socrates, preparing for his own trial, interrupts a lawyer about to bring capital charges against his father, and asks why.  He says it's his piety.  Socrates, being accused of impiety, runs him around in circles trying to come to a consistent concept of piety."

"Oh.  Our history book mentions the dialogue but not the name."

Nanase looked at Ellen for confirmation, getting only a shrug in return.  "Well, the dialogue gives its name to the Euthyphro dilemma due to one of the questions introduced – do the gods define piety, or do they simply recognize it?  In modern, Abrahamic terms, if God is 'all good,' does His will simply accord with good, or does good not exist outside His will?"  She sighed.  "My perspective on this is a little unique."

"Because of your angel spell," said Grace.

Nanase nodded.  "God has blessed me, and that blessing took the form of a sword.  I could have killed Abraham, and I would have killed Abraham, and it would have had God's, or a god's, blessing."

"So you think it's blessed to kill."

"I think it can be.  And if and when to kill is blessed, then not to kill is a sin."

"But you're not sure that makes it right or wrong," said Grace.  Nanase said nothing.  "Susan told me you did kill a vampire in Paris."

"Not just killed him, we assassinated him."

"Assassinated?"

"We sought him out intending to do him harm.  He would have killed us if we'd stopped, but we put ourselves in that situation, so without legal sanction, that would have been murder.  I can only assume that those damned immortals had some sort of arrangement with Arthur's EU counterparts."

"So," asked Grace, "you had a writ of... I don't remember... marque?  No, that's not right..."

"In Abbottabad," said Nanase, "at least under the official parameters, the US could have had total victory without firing a shot.  It wasn't going to happen, but it was a nominal possibility.  Without that possibility it would have been a war crime.  But we had no such limits even on paper."

"So you committed a war crime?"

A cruel, cruel smile came to Nanase's face as she shook her head.  "Of course not.  No war crimes in peacetime.  But even as a police action, the rules of engagement we were under would have been wrong if the vampire had been human.  But vampires aren't human."

"And neither am I..."

This caused Nanase to pause, and the smile to fade from her face.  "I phrased that badly, Grace, I'm sorry.  But let's go back to Tengu – someday, he might have a change of heart.  It won't erase what he did, and he should still rot in whatever magical hellhole they've stuck him in, but he could rot a truly changed man."  A grim look fell over her eyes as she continued.  "A vampire cannot change.  He has to feed, or die.  Moreover, a vampire will not want to change.  He chose to become that way.  Body and soul, death is his only salvation."

"Like Mr. Raven said about the boar..."

"What?" asked Nanase.

"He said that the boar couldn't be saved."

"Boar?  What?"

At that they just stared at each other for a time.  Ellen scooted over and rubbed Nanase's shoulders, and Nanase, with a moan, sighed in relief.  The two of them smiled, looking up at Grace together.

"I'm sorry, Grace," said Nanase.  "To be honest, I think I'm asking myself a lot of the same questions you are."

Despite her smile, there was a hollowness in Nanase's eyes.  She was clearly struggling to maintain the smile, as a tearful Ellen tried to meet Grace's gaze with a smile of her own, continuing to rub her girlfriend's shoulders.  Grace gave a weak smile back, and said, "I think I should get going."

"Yeah," said Ellen.

Grace nodded and left.


	3. Chapter 3

Susan heard someone knock at her door.  She looked out to see Laurence Olivier in a trenchcoat a bit too small for him.  "Hello?"

"Why I in this weak piping time of peace / Have no delight to pass away the time / Seeking a way and straying from the way / Not knowing how to find the open air / And from that torment I will free myself / Or hew my way out with a bloody axe."

"...the hell?" said Susan.

The Olivier continued.  "Plots I have laid, inductions dangerous. / Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths / Our bruised arms hung up for monuments / Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings / Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. / I am determined to prove a villain / And hate the idle pleasures of these days."

There was an awkward moment, as the Olivier stood looking regal, and Susan just stared through the peephole.  The Olivier broke the silence: "love forswore me in my grandpa's egg."  At that, Susan opened the door, and "he" walked in, speaking with hardly a break.

"Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile / And cry 'content' to that which grieves my heart / And wet my cheeks with artificial tears / And frame my face to all occasions. / I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall / I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk / I'll play the orator as well as Nestor / Deceive more slily than Ulysses could / And, like a Sinon, take another Troy. / I can add colors to the chameleon / Change shapes with Proteus for advantages..."

With those words the middle-aged white man had shrunk to a petite, black teenage girl whose trenchcoat fit her like a tent.

"...and set the murderous Machiavel to school!"

Without changing expression, Susan responded, "you do know that The Prince was written decades after the Battle of Bosworth."

"I know!" exclaimed Grace.

"And that the Olivier version borrows that part of the soliloquy from another play?"

"I know."

"And that at that point in that play he couldn't have been older than twelve, and Machiavelli wouldn't have been born?"

"Yes, I know! I looked it up.  An early version has 'th'aspiring Catiline,' but Shakespeare didn't trust his audience to know who Catiline was, due to the perceived lowbrow appeal of the medium of theatre, especially those plays that featured simulated violent acts."

Grace saw that Susan was regarding her with the look she always took on when her mind wasn't very engaged, that familiar, half-lidded stare; it made Grace flinch, reminding her of what had brought her there to begin with. "Just tell me you're not naked under there," said Susan.

"I'm wearing my Uryuom suit."

Susan responded with a willfully exaggerated wince.  "Just keep the coat on."

"Okay."

Susan led her over to the couch.  "If anyone else had come pulling a stunt like that, I'd have shut the door in their face.  You're lucky you're you."

"No one else you know could have pulled a stunt like that."

"You know what I mean."

"No, I really don't."

Susan shook her head.

"Then never mind.  You're just lucky Mom's not home."

"I'm not lucky. I knew your mother wasn't home."

"Of course you did.  Sit down," said Susan.  Grace sat down.  "Now what's this about not knowing love since you hatched?  You're practically some kind of love golem."

"I wanted you to know it was me."

"Showing up as yourself would have worked."

"I was being dramatic!" exclaimed Grace.

"That I'm not disputing," said Susan.  "What I'm missing is the point."

"I don't know. I guess, I feel sort of like him right now."

"Like Richard III."

"To the idea that he 'could not deal in Nature's soft laws.'"

"What, you feel guilty about dating a... mad scientist?" asked Susan, almost preceding that with "bigender," but thinking better of it.

Grace actually laughed slightly at that - it was a weak, pained laugh.  "No, nothing like that; just, I've been talking to Tedd, and to Ellen and Nanase, about what happened at Diane's party."

"What about it?"

"It's kind of a long story... I guess the short version is that I think I was too nice to someone."

"The horror."

"No, to someone like Damien.  I think I made the same mistake I made when I tried to save him, and then hated myself for the fact I hadn't."

Susan smirked.  "I was told your sister had some choice words for that."

"And she was right," said Grace.  "I learned the hard way where that sort of thinking can lead when I learned in class about Hitler."

That startled Susan. "I'm... I'm not sure it was..."

"I guess I feel like I'm fated to be in the wrong because, well, everything but love forswore me in the egg."

"You poor little messiah."

Grace said nothing for almost a minute, until in a faraway tone, she began to sing.  "Así como un despiadado ángel, joven mesías, llega a ser leyenda..."

"...what?"

"It's from the theme of an anime George had me watch."

"The theme was in Spanish?"

"It's from the Spanish dub."

"Why the hell were you watching the Spanish dub?"

"I broke his computer.  It's not important.  The 'mesías' there ends up withdrawing into himself, letting the world crumble, after he has to kill his lover."

"Sounds like they got an off-brand 'mesías.'"

"What if I had to kill Tedd?"

"His father would be grumpier than usual."

"In another world, Tedd became a despot."

"Maybe.  That foxgirl seemed to think otherwise."

"Nanase said the vampire you killed..."

Susan suddenly took on a very stern look.  "What."

Flinching at the interruption, Grace had to pause a moment before continuing.  "...she said it had to die."

"She was right."

"She said its only redemption would have been suicide."

"She was right."

Grace again began again to sing, this time in German.  "Deine Zauber binden wieder / Was die Mode streng geteilt / Alle Menschen werden Brüder / Wo Dein sanfter Flügel welt."

"...right," said Susan. "Whatever the hell you just sang."

"All men will be brothers under Thy wing."

"I know," said Susan.  "I'm referring more to whatever Gordian knot of logic could make it remotely relevant."

"It played on that show, when the 'mesías' realized he had no choice but to kill his lover."

Susan waited a moment to make sure Grace was done speaking, then said, "Schiller."

"Who?"

"He wrote the words; in nineteenth-century literature, you can find his name used in the same way we might say 'Pollyanna' today."

"Pollyanna... I think you called me that once."

"I probably have."

"Would you call Pollyanna evil?" asked Grace.

"No?  I was about nine when I read it, but I think the narrative kind of pushes things into place for her."

"But in the real world she might be."

"Let me put it this way," said Susan, "Pollyanna would not have done well that week in Paris."

"And neither would I."

"No. You wouldn't have."

"What about in Nazi Germany? Or Lord Tedd's world? Or Tengu's cult in Europe?"

"I don't know."

Grace then realized that at some point Susan's face had again come to bear that familiar half-lidded stare.  No matter at what height she was looking, she was always somehow also looking at the ground.  Always looking at...

"You want me to leave, don't you?" Grace asked.

"Yes."

"You regret letting me in, don't you?"

"Yes."

"I'll go."  Grace stood up to go.  As she opened the door, Susan called behind her.

"Wait."

Grace turned.

"Don't think I want you to come back in," Susan continued.  "I just want to tell you I think you've put me in an unfair position, so casually, wildly mixing my reality with your fantasy."

"The play, the anime, or Teddy becoming Lord Tedd?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

"Go."

Once Grace was gone, Susan felt she had to sit down and take some deep breaths.  She did, however, have to grudgingly admit that if Melony were to send a messiah, Grace would make a far more glorious summer than that Sun of 892-IV.


	4. Chapter 4

The next evening, at the comic shop, Justin had noticed some kind of dark cloud hanging over Grace.  She said she couldn't talk about it "with everyone around," so he took her aside.

"Justin," she asked once they were away from prying ears, "do you think people ever need to die?"

Justin shrugged.   "Well, yeah.  Hard as it is to think about, the world would be pretty stagnant if we weren't all going to die."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

"Do you think people ever need to be killed?" Grace asked.  "Not just could reasonably be, but _need_ to be?"

Justin paused at that for a moment, and after racking his brain, came back with a single word.  "Issatsu-tashou."

"What?"

"Literally, one-kill-many-live.  The idea that it may in some circumstances in fact be  _less_ violent to kill than to forbear."

"Do you believe that?"

Justin paused before answering.  "I believe it's a concept."

"That sounds like a dodge."

"Does it?  Huh."

"Why bring it up if you're just going to run around it?"

"Why ask a question if you won't accept the answer?"

"What answer?"

"The one I just gave."

"That wasn't an answer," said Grace.

"I could swear I answered," said Justin.

"You answered, but..."

"But what?"

"What was it you really said?"

"Issatsu-tashou."

Grace huffed.  "Which you don't believe."

"I didn't say that," said Justin.

"You won't say the opposite."

"Well, I haven't said the opposite."

"And I don't think you're going to say it anytime soon."

"For certain values of 'soon,' that I'll give you."

"Fine.  Then why bring it up?"

"It sounded like what you were getting at."

"So all that was just you saying someone had already said something I said?"  Grace shook her head and turned away.  "Fine, thanks."

"Well, you being you," said Justin, "I'm guessing you've already noticed what a Sinitic construction it is for a Japanese word."

Grace again turned and looked up at Justin.  "Isn't it usually the Japanese word that makes it into English?  The phonologies are closer."

"That's true, but in this case there's a reason.  When do you think the Japanese might've been very invested in such a concept?"

Grace gasped slightly.  "...oh."

"That's right.  Their interpretation of the concept was to take over half the Pacific.  You might guess Chinese schools disagreed."

"...and so do you."

"I didn't say that, and this time I'll say that I won't."

Grace sighed.  "I can think of too many things to say about what you are and aren't saying to decide which to say, so I won't say anything."

"Well, those Chinese schools weren't defended by a wall of forbearance, were they?"

"If you're saying what I think you're saying, that only sounds like they could justify it, not that they thought it was right."

"Justify it as...?"

"...forgivable?"

"Because...?"

"They had to to survive?"

"In a word, it was necessary," said Justin.  "You can find very good arguments against distinguishing that from what's right."

"That sounds familiar," said Grace.

"It should.  But the point is, as damning as that example was, the idea that to kill in the name of nonviolence is not only justifiable, but preferable, is much older and much broader.  It's why Sikhs wear daggers - both Sikh and Buddhist traditions of nonviolence can be traced back to Hindu thought, where after all, among their most holy scriptures is a justification of waging war."

"So you do think sometimes it's better to kill?" asked Grace.

"I think it's thought," said Justin.

"So you're doing this again."

"I think it's thought by a great many teachers, who bear listening to. Not just Buddhists, not just Sikhs, but a great many teachers from a great many traditions."

"Such as?" asked Grace, narrowing her eyes.

"Well, consider, while the Japanese were on their great campaign of imperial ahimsa, the volumes of Christian and humanist moralizing that have concluded the kindest method of showing them the error of their ways was to disintegrate a quarter million civilians."

Grace opened her mouth to speak, but then shook her head.  "So you're saying... what _are_ you saying?"

"If I'm saying anything, it's that you're not going to get a right answer.  All you'll ever have is your answer, and I can't give that to you."

"Okay, that _definitely_ feels like another dodge."

"That's because it is.  But you're the one who tried to palm off your moral compass onto the comic book guy."

"Oh."  Grace turned away again.

Justin bit his lip.  "...seriously, Grace, isn't this something you'd be better off talking about with Tedd?"

"I did.  But then I realized he's kind of part of the problem."

"How?"

"Remember Lord Tedd?"

Justin's eyes widened.  "...you don't think..."

"I don't know," said Grace.

"Damn."  Justin thought for a moment.  "Ellen?"

"I tried Ellen... and Nanase, and Susan.  And I wound up hurting all of them."

"Hurt them?  How did you hurt them?"

"Both times - Ellen and Nanase were together - both times I opened old wounds for them; both times I felt so monstrous and selfish as I left."

"Well, then, I guess it's a good thing that this time, it was me who hurt you."

Grace turned back and smiled.  "Yeah.  Yeah, it is."

Justin returned her smile.  "There we go."

"Justin?  Do you think this whole hangup was selfish?"

"Oh, yes, monstruously," said Justin, his smile growing broader.  Grace's smile flickered, but remained.


	5. Chapter 5

Grace went home after work half ruminating on, half dismissing what Justin had said.  She could see how this whole endeavor might appear selfish from the outside, but then again, she was sure she hadn't mentioned to Justin about the nightmares.  She was sleeping with Tedd most nights now - wasn't it more monstrous to let it go, and vex him whenever the nightmares returned?  But what was the alternative - to summon old ghosts indefinitely in others for answers that, if Justin was to be believed, might not exist?

And so, she realized, she was right back to question she had been asking in the first place, and like that one, there may well not be an answer.  On the heels of that thought, however, she realized that this time there must be an answer, since having peeled back a layer the very lack of an answer would give her her answer.  By this paradox the question tentatively answered itself - let her partner suffer, rather than drag her whole world on a snipe hunt.  A monstrous answer for a monstrous creature.

Arriving home, she went straight to the lab, knowing that was where Tedd would be.  He was in his male form, poring over a dataset that from Sarah, who was at another terminal, in Venus form with some sort of EEG-like device stuck to her head.  So she was here as well; in fact, she was first to notice Grace's entrance.

"Grace! Hey!"

Tedd glanced up, looked back down, made a few quick keystrokes, saving and closing the dataset, and looked back up at Grace.  "Oh, hi!  Um, how are you?"

Grace smiled a great, bubbly smile.  "I'm a monster!"

"Uh..." said Tedd.

"Good to hear!" said Sarah, echoing Grace's smile.  Tedd glanced over at Sarah, and back at Grace.  "Good, I guess?" he said.

Grace leapt across the room.  First, she lifted Tedd off his seat, and shielded his head.  As the two of them flew through the air together, she buried his face in her breasts and wrapped her legs around him, nudging his upper arms with her elbows to lie over her back.  The two of them rolled with the impact as they hit the carpet, and as soon as she felt it was safe, Grace lowered the hand over Tedd's head to his back, drawing him into an embrace, and loosened her legs, allowing hers and Tedd's to be intertwined more equally.  It was a maneuver she'd done a thousand times.

Sarah, for her part, just smiled as she watched at the two of them snuggle on the floor.  Tedd nuzzled against Grace and purred.  Grace looked up at Sarah.  "So, Sarah, you're here!" she said.

"Heh, yeah," said Sarah, giving her enhanced breasts a jiggle, on her face a leading expression.

"Oh!" said Grace. "And you're V5'd!"

"Well, I'd hoped you wouldn't pick up on it," said Sarah, "but yeah, Tedd wanted to run some neuropsych tests on this form, and he figured he'd get better data from someone fully human."

"That's fair," said Grace.  "I just wasn't expecting you tonight."

"Yeah, Sam had a thing, so I decided to drop in.  Turned out Tedd found a way to put me to work."

"Whi-tssh!" shouted Tedd below Grace, cracking an imaginary whip.

Sarah laughed.  "Oh, I don't mind.  Brings me one step closer to my dream of being a wizard!"

"Doesn't Mr. Verres keep trying to explain why you can't be a wizard?" asked Grace.

"Oh, fine," said Sarah with an exaggerated pout.  "Then what about a priestess?"

"A priestess?" asked Grace.

"Sure, why not?"  She stood up, unsticking the EEG wires in a single, theatrical movement.  "Priestess of the lab."  She gave a quick twirl.

Before Grace could answer, Tedd piped up.  "You'd think one of us would be a better candidate for that."

"Too late.  Dibs."

Grace sat up.  "So what makes a priestess," she asked, "is dibs?"

"Well, I have been anointed," said Sarah, brushing a bit of EEG gel off her forehead, "but it's true I've yet to be fully ordained."

With that, Sarah extended her hands to Grace and Tedd, each taking one of hers in theirs.  The two stood up, and Sarah knelt between them, bowing her head and closing her eyes.  Grace and Tedd looked at one another for a moment, briefly at a loss, before Grace knelt down, putting both hands on Sarah's right shoulder, and Tedd followed on the left.  Grace leaned in to give her a peck on the cheek, and Tedd followed suit, their kisses landing together.

"Aaah!  I've been kissed by a monster!" said Sarah, laughing, then she rose to one knee, shifting her shoulders to buck their hands.

"Well, what did you want us to do?" asked Grace as the three of them stood.

"I don't know, but I didn't think you'd... well..." she touched the cheek where Grace had kissed her and chuckled.  "...okay, maybe I did. Or at least should've."

"There, you're ordained," said Tedd.  "Now what?"

Sarah positioned herself behind Tedd and Grace, and put one hand on the outside shoulder of each.

"By the power invested in me as priestess of the lab, I pronounce you monster and Tedd.  You may now make out."  And beneath their priestess's approving eye, they did.


End file.
